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Lawrence W. Reed
On September 1, 2008, Lawrence W. (Larry) Reed assumed the presidency of the Foundation for Economic Education, headquartered in Irvington, New York. In this article, FEE: A Lighthouse for Freedom, FEE’s history and importance were highlighted by Reed.
After serving as President of the Mackinac Center for its first two decades, Reed became president emeritus of the Center upon assuming his duties as president of FEE.
Reed holds a B.A. degree in Economics from Grove City College (1975) and an M.A. degree in History from Slippery Rock State University (1978), both in Pennsylvania. He taught economics at Midland’s Northwood University from 1977 to 1984 and chaired the Department of Economics from 1982 to 1984. He designed the university’s unique dual major in Economics and Business Management and founded its annual, highly-acclaimed “Freedom Seminar.” In 1982, he was a major party candidate in the general election for the U. S. House of Representatives from Michigan’s 4th district. He moved to Boise, Idaho in 1984 to direct a policy institute there before moving back to Michigan to head up the Mackinac Center in December 1987.
Under his leadership, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy emerged as the largest and one of the most effective and prolific of over 40 state-based “free market” think tanks in America. He served a term as president and 15 years as a member of the board of directors of the State Policy Network, a national organization whose membership consists of those state-based groups.
In 1994, Reed was invited to give the Commencement address to the graduating class of the Colleges of Education, Health, and Human Services and Extended Learning at Central Michigan University (CMU) before an audience of 6,000. CMU conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Public Administration. In 1998, Grove City College (his undergraduate alma mater) bestowed upon him its “Distinguished Alumni Award.”
In the past twenty years, he has authored over 1,000 newspaper columns and articles, 200 radio commentaries, dozens of articles in magazines and journals in the U. S. and abroad, as well as five books. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, Baltimore Sun, Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, among many others. Reed’s most recent book is Striking the Root: Essays on Liberty. Since 1978, he has delivered more than 1,000 speeches in 40 states and 15 foreign countries, including one at People’s University in Beijing, China.
Reed’s interests in political and economic affairs have taken him as a freelance journalist to 69 countries on six continents since 1985, including five visits to Russia, five to China, four to Nicaragua, three to Poland, five to Kenya, and others to such places as Cambodia, East Germany, Mozambique, Haiti, Japan, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Honduras, Greece, Italy, Australia, Slovenia, Croatia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Singapore, Israel, Egypt, Malaysia, Vietnam, Iceland and New Zealand.
From firsthand experience, he has reported on hyperinflation in South America, voodoo in Haiti, black markets behind the Iron Curtain, reforms and repression in China and Cambodia, the recent stunning developments in Eastern Europe, and civil war inside Nicaragua and Mozambique. Among many foreign adventures, Reed visited the ravaged nation of Cambodia in 1989 with his late friend, Academy Award winner Dr. Haing S. Ngor; recorded an authentic native voodoo ceremony in a remote region of Haiti in 1987; traveled with the Polish anti-communist underground for which he was arrested and detained by border police in 1986; interviewed presidents and cabinet officials in half a dozen nations; spent time with the contra rebels during the Nicaraguan civil war; and lived for two weeks with the rebels of Mozambique at their bush headquarters in 1991, at the height of that country’s devastating civil war.
Reed was first elected in 1994 to the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in Irvington, New York—one of the oldest and most respected economics institutes in America and publisher of the journal, The Freeman, for which he writes a column entitled “Ideas and Consequences.” In 1998, he was elected chairman of FEE’s board of Trustees and reelected chairman in 1999 and 2000.
His spare-time interests include reading, travel, flyfishing, hiking, skydiving, and animals of just about any kind.
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Our greetings and Best Wishes for Happy New Year!
Received your FREEDOM Quarterly and your NEVER GIVE UP
commentary. (See endnote below.)
Your AMBASSADOR COUNCIL PROGRAM is what we need
to educate elected officials at the local government
level…in Michigan at County and Township. It appears
to me that the various \\\\\\\’new elected official\\\\\\\’ training
programs, some by MSU, fall very far short of what
officials need to know to be effective and honest.
Attending over 90 % of Leelanau County and Leland Twp
meetings for the past 20 years I have concluded that
at the county commission (7-members) only one commissioner
tries to understand her job. At the Leland Twp Board
(5-members) only ONE Trustee fully understood his duties,
responsibilities and obligations.
Three years ago we presented two Mich. AG letters to the
County commission which stated that NON-CHARTER COUNTIES
DO NOT HAVE AUTHORITY TO ADOPT ORDINANCES TO REGULATE
PRIVATE PROPERTY. (A charter County must have a population
of 750,000 or more.) Shortly thereafter the commissioners
rescinded a handful of UNLAWFUL ordinances.
Keep in mind that County\\\\\\\’s corporate counsel is
Cohl, Stoker and Toskey of Lansing. They are the same
\\\\"counsel\\\\" that appear to have advised County
commissioners a year ago by letter how to violate
the open meetings act. (The Leelanau-Enterprise sued and
commissioners appear to have admitted they intentionally
violated OMA.)
Note that some commissioners have served more than 10
years and had been sued a number of times by one Charles
Ryant (now deceased) for the same violations. It is easy
from these experiences to conclude that most elected local
officials exhibit a tragic paucity of knowledge as to \\\\"how
to honestly govern\\\\" and lack very little understanding of
ECONOMICS…some of it appears to be willful.
Thanks for your continuous flow of unique and common-sense
ideas about ECONOMIC EDUCATION and similar issues as FEE
goes forward. Mary Lou and I look forward to many more
(Except how can you hope to best Gov. Granholm who is yet
to \\\\"blow us away\\\\" with her Michigan economic miracles as
promised 6 years ago!?) spm & mlm
End Note: The type size and ink intensity (darkness) for those
of us with \\\\"older\\\\" eyesight is somewhat challenging to read.
4 January 2009 at 7:36 pm